Bracha a Difficult Case

BRACHA and OCD

Bracha was a young beautiful woman with  diagnosis OCD. Staff didn't like Bracha.  She was a hard case. Staff liked easy clients. It's understandable. Bracha bothers staff with endless questions asking the same question over and over or would involve a person in exhausting dialogue. She supposedly could not make any decisions about her very basic needs as for example dressing. She would ask you "What top should I wear? Black or white? If you answer "white" she would keep asking "why not black?" If you give her explanation why she should wear "white", she would say "But maybe black is better?" A worker is ready to kill Bracha for that

The legal explanation from professionals of her such annoying behavior was her OCD. As if Bracha was afraid to make a wrong decision. If she would accept "white" and would wear it, what if that would be wrong, then she would be in trouble, so she was having a huge anxiety about that. Working with her we should address her anxiety trying to explain her that nothing bad would happen to her if she'd wear "white"

At mornings time is very limited to address clients' anxiety. It's time for quick morning routine-get ready for the bus -2 and sometimes even 1 worker taking care for 12 residents. Also I had doubt about anxiety explanation. I was thinking about addressing "getting attention" and "having a habit" issues. And I did believe that we were the ones to help her if only we'd cooperate and be consistent as Bracha needed every day consistent supervision on daily routine. Therapist cannot have that way of helping

INITIATIVES  ARE NOT ENCAURAGED

 I wanted to work with Bracha. I like difficult cases. But as we were in conflict with the Manager my working hours  were limited as much as possible. I was not given that opportunity  I asked to work with Bracha on a volunteer basis. I was not allowed. Manager wanted to be consistent in her politic. Staff liked to complain to me about problems they had with Bracha.I didn't cooperate about complaining- instead suggested to try different solutions which I didn’t have an opportunity to try. Reaction was negative.  Explanation :  therapist  didn't help, medication didn't help. She is a hard OCD case, she does not belong to this residence. There is no point to try

Once I worked in child's residence and one of the child stayed by hours in front of TV in a very uncomfortable and I believed harmful for his body position. So I decided to make him a comfortable seat from an old broken piece of furniture which nobody would ever use. If it’d not work I could easily return it to the way it was before.  I  got down to business with big enthusiasm but everybody around gave me a strange look. One young guy was especially curious and kept asking “What is it’d not work?” Overall every experiments in those places are met with surprise and mistrust  even if it’s just an old piece of furniture which never would be used

BIG LUCK HAPPENED

Then it happened that I got some  limited opportunity to work with Bracha by mornings. It was a big luck!!! I immediately got down to business.
The first morning I spent in her room being involved in her dressing for 100%, but keeping one rule-answering her questions only once (I used a lot of joking along, so it was kind of a game). I saw that some of her questions were reasonable, some not. Next morning I answered only reasonable questions explaining her which questions I saw as reasonable and which - not....Morning after that I responded  this way "Bracha, that is a reasonable question, but I know that you can solve it yourself” When  I was convinced that she was able to dress independently.  I only checked at her a few times and used a simple motivation.” If you'd not make it to the bus, you would have to pay from your pocket for car service.” When she came to the office fully dressed independently I gave her a lot of attention-praised her, talked to her, helped her with anything she needed stressing constantly "Bracha , you are capable to do so many great things" as she always was upset with herself.
Also when I worked on weekend  and had time to spent with Bracha we did preparation of clothes for every day of the week. She was very much in fashion,  Cared a lot about her outfits and it was a lot of fun to discuss it with her. She didn’t use her endless “what if…..”  I asked Bracha a few times about what she is working on when she goes to psychologist every week. She couldn’t say anything. Once I was there with her. Well, they discussed how the previous week went by

SHARING the RESULT

When the good result of our work was obvious I started to share it with the staff. My approached was ignored as well as proofs  that Bracha  had a good of potential for improvement. Nobody was interested. Even  more I met a negative almost hostile attitude "are you the best? Only you could do it and other couldn't?"......I tried to explain that I succeeded because I applied some techniques and attitude as I applied  with my mentally retarded and autistic kids. Those are very workable productive techniques in different  life situations  Reaction was "Bracha is not  mentally retarded"
I tried other things to convince staff that Bracha was not  that bad and hopeless, that she did belong to our residence and that we were able to help her (and I had my own experience with her as a proof).....Nothing worked
Staff was sure Bracha needed to leave the residence, because she was not progressing. If psychologist who worked with Bracha. couldn't help her, then of course we were not able, if the hospitals she stayed in were not able to help her, so what could we do, etc, etc. If I mentioned my experience the reaction was "are you the only one so smart?"....dead end…

OFFICE POLITIC vs COMMON SENSE

I gave up....on staff....With their negative attitude I couldn't help Bracha. - she needed consistency and cooperation among staff in order to progress .
Staff had a good reason to have such an attitude to me as I did not follow official instructions (attend Bracha's anxiety and unwritten rules of our place-constant discussing clients personalities and behavior (simply gossiping)

We do very hard job for small money. Clients are difficult and create many problems and troubles. We the staff should support each other by sharing  our troubles with clients and their difficult behaviors . By morning the Manager used to give me a call asking what problems I experienced with clients during the night
And I usually answered “no problems” as I like to solve them instead of talking   or complaining about them.  Manager didn’t like it. She wanted to discuss clients bad  behavior during the night with overnight worker as she liked it so she  ordered  me to discuss it with her for 15 minutes (women gossiping about other women….). And when I said there is nothing to discuss she wrote a denunciation on me to higher authority that I cannot be trusted with my work …..after 15 years of doing it…..Power Games healthy adults play with each other

Office politic is very important when you work for the System-much more important than any logic or common sense or lives and well being of clients you care about
To get some rest from our office politic I needed to go upstairs and talk to clients with psychiatric problems  and  their issues were natural and made much more sense than those in the office